2017 Annual Meeting Recap
We were pleased to welcome a huge crowd of current members, businesses, and about 2 dozen NEW members at our annual gathering this year. The event was held at The Nash for the second year in a row because the historic space is well suited for an event like this, and well … there is a bowling alley downstairs! Many attendees took advantage of the unseasonably warm weather and rode to the venue and the indoor bike parking that awaited them.
Once all of your registration was set, you were on your way to a mini-expo filled with vendor tables from local bike shops, organizations, and even an information table for our new event this summer – BikeSpark. Please support the local businesses that support advocacy efforts like ours. They all made generous product or service donations to the event that culminated into a very high-value raffle for our attendees. Not all contributors are pictured, so we would like to thank: Century Cycles, cycling attorney Kenneth Knabe, Cleveland Velodrome, Wind Swishers LLC, Ohio City Bike Co-Op, Beat Cycles, Eddy’s Bike Shop, Road Wise LLC, author Mark Looney, Spin Bike Shop, Joy Machines, Broadway Cycles, Ray’s MTB, Bike Euclid, and CAMBA.
Guests then entered the main hall and were soon feasting on delicious local food and drink from The Proper Pig and Platform Brewing. Everyone behaved and followed all of the Nash house rules as expected.
Well fed and properly libated, the crowd settled in for a presentation from Bike Cleveland staff, board, and Executive Director Jacob VanSickle. The agenda included a recap of the long list of 2016 accomplishments, and a look forward to the goals ahead for the new year. Special awards were presented to our top volunteers for the year: Anneliese Coleman & Mitch Zimmer.
Two awards for Guardians of Sustainable Transportation were given out at the meeting. One went to Rachael Sommer and Calley Mersmann for bringing an open streets movement, ciCLEvia, back to Cleveland. The second one went to City of Cleveland for their leadership in advancing the Midway plan, a plan for a network of protected bike lanes. If you would like to see the entire presentation, we have provided it below.
Some key highlights from 2016:
- The UH Bikes Bikeshare tallied 1890 members, 7411 trips, & 14,073 miles over 27 stations & 250 bikes.
- 15.6 miles of bike lanes and 2.7 miles of sharrows were added to Cleveland’s growing network.
- The completion of a low cost plan to add a protected bike lane to the Detroit Superior Bridge.
- A district wide School Travel Plan was adopted (70 schools; 27,000 students.)
The accomplishments of Bike Lakewood were lauded, and we welcomed Bike Brecksville & Bike Euclid to the list of chapters as we spread our work further out into the suburbs.
Here are just a few 2017 goals on our agenda:
- Work with the City of Cleveland to monitor the installation of 15 miles of new bicycle facilities
- Outreach and education to get elected officials and planners/engineers out on bikes.
- Coordinate police training for bicycle/pedestrian safety & 3ft Law enforcement.
- Introduce new and enhanced bicycle events and outreach programs.
As always, we want to express a huge THANK YOU to the volunteers that enabled this event to run so smoothly. If you couldn’t attend the event this year – we welcome you to become a member today – and look forward to seeing you next time!
